


What Is Meant to Be

by RosalindInPants



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Drinking & Talking, M/M, Post-Canon, in-world transphobia, processing the epilogue revelation, trans!Santi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21889927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosalindInPants/pseuds/RosalindInPants
Summary: After his visit to the Iron Tower, Wolfe takes some time to talk through what happened with Santi as he tries to process what he's learned about himself. Santi, for reasons of his own, can relate.Something of an experiment in queering the text.
Relationships: Niccolo Santi/Christopher Wolfe
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	What Is Meant to Be

**Author's Note:**

> From Sword and Pen:  
> His world opened. His body burned, tingled, and woke with sensations he’d never known, never imagined in his life. He saw the flow of life, the bones of the universe, the building blocks of everything, and it was the most beautiful thing he could imagine.
> 
> “You were meant to be an Obscurist,” she said. “Something went wrong in your body, but only just slightly. The talent was always there; you just couldn’t reach it. And now you can be what you were supposed to be. If you wish. You could be very, very powerful.”
> 
> He let out a raw sound and put his back to a wall to hold himself steady. He’d been a disappointment to his parents, a failure rejected and sent to find his own way beyond these iron walls. And she offered to give him that.
> 
> For an awful moment, he wanted it more than anything.
> 
> Then he caught his breath and said, “Give it to someone who needs it. I don’t.”

Letting his nearly empty wineglass rest against his knee, Wolfe tipped his head back to look at the stars twinkling overhead. So many of them, too many to count, even in just this patch of sky he could see from his little courtyard. For a flicker of a moment, he wondered what they would have looked like through Obscurists’ eyes.

He supposed he would always wonder now.

But Nic’s arm around his shoulders was more solid, more real than those flights of fancy. Nic sat quiet beside him, an easy, attentive silence that Wolfe knew as well as the shape of his lover’s arm. Waiting for Wolfe to finish.

“But before she took it back, she said…” Wolfe hesitated again. The words that would come next bore weight not only for him, but for Nic.

“She said you were born wrong,” Nic finished for him. He smiled, not the full, radiant smile that melted Wolfe’s heart, but a more rueful expression. Understanding. “It’s all right, love. You can tell me. I know.”

Nic did know. He had far more experience with such things than Wolfe ever would.

Wolfe looked down at his glass. The hand that held it, empty of power. “I was meant to be an Obscurist, but something went wrong in my body. That was what she said.”

“And what do _you_ think?” Nic asked. His his hand tightened a little on Wolfe’s shoulder. His eyes, warm and affectionate as they were, seemed to see right through Wolfe.

Wolfe gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Isn’t that obvious? I asked her to take it back, didn’t I?”

Without answering, Nic reached for the bottle that rested on the ground beside his feet and topped off both their glasses. Looking out over the courtyard walls, he took a slow sip. Wolfe did the same. It was a good red, sweet but complex.

“The Medica offered me surgery a few years back, at my annual physical.” Nic said after a while, his gaze still on the sky. There was just the slightest hint of bitterness in his voice as he continued, “He said they’d perfected the procedure. It would make my body what it was supposed to be all along.”

Wolfe swallowed, and the wine sank down his throat like a stone. He hadn’t heard this before. He knew Nic’s opinion on the subject of surgery in general, of course, but not this. The urge to ask for names and plan retribution nagged at him, but he pushed it aside. “Is he still employed?” he asked with false levity.

Nic shrugged. “I haven’t looked. It doesn’t matter. You already know what I told him, I’m sure.”

“Your body is perfect exactly as it is.” Wolfe said, meaning every word as intensely as he had every time he’d said them these past two decades. He hadn’t expected its exact configuration the first time he’d seen Nic, but that was irrelevant. Nic was Nic, and Nic was perfect. All that mattered was that Nic was satisfied with it.

As if reading Wolfe’s mind, Nic squeezed Wolfe’s hand and said, “And that is true for yours, too. The only thing that matters is how you feel about it, not what anyone else says.”

And there it was. As usual, Nic had cut right to the heart of the matter. Wolfe’s feelings on the subject of his body were no easy thing to parse even before this new discovery, and now… He took a fortifying drink of wine. “How should I know if the way I am is right or wrong?”

“You would know.” Nic’s voice was firm, but not unkind, as was his grip on Wolfe’s hand. “I did. And when I started on hormones, I knew that was right. It felt better.”

Wolfe remembered the aching rightness of the power fading from his awareness. “I feel better without it. The power.”

Nic brought Wolfe’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “Then that is your answer, _amore mio_. This is a lot to take in, and you don’t have to be sure yet how you feel. But don’t let anyone else tell you they know better than you do, and know that I love you regardless.”

The only suitable response to that was to kiss Nic, so he did, long and soft and sweeter than the wine. He wondered what Nic might look like through Obscurist’s eyes, but he let that idle curiosity drift away. He didn’t want to know. Nic was perfect exactly like this, and there was no other way Wolfe wanted to see him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Blessedharlot for sensitivity reading and feedback. I appreciate the help!


End file.
